Tokens
by stardustfalling
Summary: Before they part ways (one to Fairy Tail, and one to who-knows-where) now that the dragon invasion is over, Erza and Jellal need to have a conversation that has been put off for too long already. Jerza fluff.


**I'm back (kind of) with some fluffy, fluffy Jerza. The fluffiest. Except it's still kind of angsty, because it appears I can't write anything worth squat without at least one person being sad. Or angry. Anyway, homework has been taking a long time, so sorry for no stories.**

**Don't own Fairy Tail, but I do own the story. Don't steal. **

**I skip all over my house when I get a review, but only drop one if you feel compelled to do so. Flames and critiques (including spelling and grammar, although I've been playing with slightly unconventional grammar lately) are appreciated, and the flames with light Mimi's candle. Enjoy!**

* * *

Tokens

He sat quietly on her balcony, watching her. A sardonic half-smile came to his face as he realized how strangely their story mirrored a warped version of the Capulet-Montague tragedy. Here he was, leaning against the stone railing of her small balcony, watching her sleep. They were cursed to rarely see each other; if one died, it would mean the other's death.

The Grand Magic Games were over, and Fairy Tail had won. Not even a day later, the dragons had come, and the city destroyed. They had won, but at what cost? Now he had to leave again, pretend that Crime Sorciere was the same even without Ultear, and evade capture. Surely, there was no harm is simply watching her in her hotel room, on the day before she left for Magnolia?

Internally, he laughed bitterly. That was a bold-faced lie if he had ever seen one. It would have made her sad if he left without saying goodbye, but at least then, they would miss the messy business of goodbyes that said too little.

The sky was dark, and the stars looked twice as bright because of it. The waning gibbous moon softly shone light through the wisps of cloud on the sky. The weak light filtered through the window-door that "protected" her, illuminating the room.

She lay on the large on the large bed they had provided for her, requipped into pajamas. Her scarlet hair spilled over the pillows and sheets, and she twitched slightly. _Probably dreaming._ He smiled slightly, adjusting his sleeves. It had been a while since he had worn his own clothes, after all.

She stirred, and his eyes snapped to her shifting form. She sat up slowly, her eyes drawn to the anomaly in the picture. Him. Her face looked sad to him, but it could have been a trick of the light. _It_ was _a trick of the light_, he silently admonished himself. However, it was hard to convince himself of that when what he wanted was so desperately opposite.

She slid out of bed and walked sleepily over to him. He jumped up as the pads of her fingers smushed against the glass. Impulsively, he let his fingers echo the shape of hers on his side of the window, only faintly hearing the chime of the city clock that marked the small hour of morning.

When she opened the door, he stepped back, not quite sure of what to do. She looked confused, and he smiled the barest hint of a smile at her expression. She was still half-asleep then. Good. All the better for him.

"Erza."

Her eyes were cloudy. "Jellal." She just looked at him, and though the fog of sleep still curled its protective tendrils around her, he could tell that she knew that he was leaving and trying to say goodbye. Her face crumpled in a way that she would have never allowed him to see if she had been fully awake, and Jellal felt a fleeting sense of guilt for stealing this last glimpse of her when she was so unprotected. Vulnerable, even. Though how the great Erza Scarlet could possibly appear vulnerable would have completely bewildered him only moments before.

"You came to say goodbye." She whispered it, almost as if admitting the fact would make it real.

"Yeah." He watched, not quite sure how this encounter would continue. Tears? Doubtful, though it would be nice to know she cared. Violence? He chuckled slightly. A plus of visiting her at night was that she was probably less prone to hitting him. Probably. Just a nice goodbye? That would be nice, like the last time they parted, except that he had learned from... sources that she had cried her eyes out after he left.

She reached her hand on a diagonal towards his. Almost without his bidding, his hand gravitated towards hers. She held the index and middle fingers of his right hand in a weak sleep-grip. Her hair cast a shadow over her face, and her expression was unreadable.

She pulled him into her room and sat down on the bed. She scooted over and lied down, pulling him onto the bed beside her with a sharp jerk before he could stammer any protest. Her face was still half in shadow, but he could still see her lips curve up in a gentle smile. "Were you thinking naughty thoughts, Jellal?" His blush deepened, and he mumbled a vaguely negative response.

She pulled him close to her, and he began to stutter excuses. "Hush. You're saying goodbye, yes?" He stilled, silenced by her words. Their bodies mirrored each other loosely, their knees touching and their heads close. Her arm was awkwardly thrown over his shoulders, and her eyes were tightly shut.

He smiled, in a broken way. He used his feet to kick off his boots, pulling her closer as he did so. Now, his arm draped over the small of her back, while her arm curled in between them. He rested his forehead against the crown of her head, savoring the moment and hating himself for it. How could he do this?

"I'll start, since it doesn't seem that you will." He was startled out of his reverie by her quiet words. So quiet, in this cavernous room; it didn't suit her at all. "Goodbye, Jellal. I wondered when you would come to say it. But you came now, which is alright, because I can make you stay now that you're here." A hint of the devilishly Erza smile crept into her moon-softened features. It faded quickly, however.

"But in the morning, you'll be gone, after whispering goodbye before we both fall asleep." He wanted to interject that she was wrong, until realizing that she was painfully accurate. "I won't see you again, then, for a long time: three or four months, at least. Either that or until the next major crisis occurs." Her smile was sad; her eyes still closed. "You won't say anything about this to me. Not about your heart, this moment, or us. I really do feel bad for your lovely fiancee, Jellal. She must feel so neglected." Yep, _definitely_ the same devilish Erza. She must have been more awake than he thought. And unfortunately, rather spot-on about his character. "It's your turn." Could he have seen a faint glimmer woven through her eyelashes?

"You are painfully accurate, Erza, though hopefully not quite as painful for you as for me," he murmured softly into her hair. _Oops. Wrong thing to say_, he thought as he gauged her reaction. Her body curved as her stomach muscles contracted. Little, pink half-moons appeared on her palm where her fingernails pressed into her skin. Jellal suddenly realized that she smelled nice. She always smelled nice actually, a mixture of smells that made up the smell of Erza. Jellal tried to contain his shiver: he was sounding slightly too much like that frightening perfume mage for his own taste.

"I will miss you." Then, quieter: "I always do." Her head ducked lower onto his chest. She didn't want him to see her face, which was definitely a bad sign. He brought his arm up from the small of her back to her arm, gently stroking her hair. "I'm so sorry," he whispered. "I am so, so sorry."

"Goodbye, Jellal." If there was a sound that could be quieter than silence, it was her voice. Barely audible, softer than he had ever heard it. "Goodbye, Erza." He didn't have the courage to continue.

Eventually, the muscles in her abdomen relaxed and she drew closer to him. Her breathing slowed, until he was almost sure she was asleep. He calmed his breathing to match hers, simultaneously trying to memorize every detail of her face. He found himself growing drowsy and relaxed, at the same time wanting the moment to last forever and willing sleep to come. His vision blurred, but right before he reached the invisible boundary between consciousness and sleep, Erza's voice whispered through the darkness.

"I don't want to say goodbye to you again, Jellal." She thought he was asleep! For a moment, he struggled with whether or not to show her that he was awake, but she began speaking again in his moment of indecision. "No, not when you have finally returned to being the Jellal that I loved when we were slave children struggling to survive." He couldn't have heard her correctly. "I..." _Don't say it. Don't say it. Don'tsayitdon'tsayitdon'tsayit!_ "I... I still love you, you know that? You probably do, but it doesn't matter to you. I mean, it does, at least I think it does, but it won't matter in terms of what you'll do in the future. Have you ever considered the possibility that I've forgiven you, and that maybe that's enough?" If he wasn't keeping up the pretense of being asleep, he would have started away from her. "I mean, I bet you say stuff to your guild mates like 'I don't deserve her after what I did' and stuff like that," her voice was slurred, layers of sleep weighing down her tongue. "But have you ever considered the fact that maybe it makes me sad that you don't allow yourself to love me too?" The childlike honesty in her voice tore him apart, and he wanted so badly to say something. "I love you, Jellal."

A hot tear slid down the side of his face and dripped onto his neck. _Crap!_ She would surely notice. Or maybe she wouldn't? Either way, he would say something. He would play her game.

He waited for a while, until her breathing evened out again. And then he spoke as well.

"I don't want to leave you, Erza. I don't want to keep leaving you over and over. I don't want to hurt you anymore, not after what I did. I want to protect you. If it means it will hurt you less, I'll tell you the truth, even if you are asleep." _Idiot!_ He shouldn't have said that. Now she knew that he knew that she was awake. "I..." _Could he? Could he really say this to the girl he had harmed, tried to kill, tried to offer up as a human sacrifice? Could he really say this to the girl whose family he had torn apart, not once, but twice?_ "I..." She would be disappointed in him if he didn't. And it would hurt her as surely as a blow to the gut. He smiled slightly in a sad way. She probably hadn't even noticed she was holding her breath.

"I love you, Erza Scarlet. I love you to the end of the world."

Tears slid down her cheeks, tap-tap-tapping on the sheets below. Her brow creased in anger and pain. "Why can't you tell me that when I'm not pretending to be asleep?!"

He pulled her closer to him, marvelling at the softness of her hair. "I'm sorry, Erza. I have let you down in so many ways."

She started crying for real, then. Her torso shook with suppressed sobs, and she crushed herself against him, clutching at the front of his shirt. Slowly, she quieted, and then she looked up at him with eyes that held the moon in them. Chocolate eyes, melting in swirls that had captivated and hypnotized him since the moment they had met. She slowly brought her hands up to his face and held the sides of his reached her face over towards his and kissed him, sweetly, beautifully. She pulled away and his eyes opened. Hers stayed closed as she spoke to him again. "At least I got to do it once. Goodnight, Jellal. I love you."

"Goodnight, Erza. I love you."

* * *

When she woke up in the morning, he was gone, as expected. She allowed herself a brief moment of sadness, letting a single tear drip off her chin, before sitting up and smiling. She would see him again, she knew. As she moved to stand, a small sound gave her pause. The chime of metal sliding over skin. She looked down, feeling an unusual weight on her left wrist.

She let her mouth fall open, surprised. Then, her face broke into a grin, and an eyebrow lifted. Of course he would be prone to such silly romantic gestures. A thin brass band encircled her wrist. The only decoration was a small, polished round stone. A colorful gemstone; red and blue, intermingled. Indeed, Jellal was apparently prone to silly romantic gestures—but the fact that they were silly and romantic by no means meant that Erza didn't like them.


End file.
